Second Sight
by Anansay
Summary: [GSR] - "There's nothing there, Grissom."


****

TITLE: Second Sight**  
AUTHOR: **Anansay**  
SUMMARY: **Something in an eye can bring two people together. **  
SPOILERS: **Butterflied - not yet aired... sometime in January/February 2004.   
**DISCLAIMER: **Not my characters. 

~*~ **Second Sight **_By Anansay  
December 26, 2003 _~*~

She rubbed at her eye for the fifth time. It just wouldn't stop itching. Flipping the paper to the other pile, she scribbled her signature on another one and flicked that paper aside as well. Three more and she had to stop again for the eye. It was twitching and had the distinct feeling of having something in it, but an in-depth examination in the bathroom mirror had revealed nothing but a growing redness of the skin and the white sclera of her eye. 

She had to sit back as a tear escaped and almost landed on a paper. She held both hands to her eyes, heels pressing in. The pressure in her head had only gotten worse and the two pills she'd taken before hadn't even touched it. Taking a steadying breath, she took her hands away and stared around her. Tiny iridescent dots danced in front of her eyes for a moment and then slowly dissipated into nothing. 

"You're tired," came the voice from the doorway. 

Grissom stood leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Sara merely stared at him, amazed that such a casual stance could create such disorder within her. His black shirt only accentuated the elegance of his grey hair and made his blue eyes only that much more rich and vibrant. It was a killer combination, meant to disarm the most stalwart of adversaries. And she seemed to be one now, constantly dueling him over one thing or another, a battle of dominance over self and job. 

The sudden burning in her eye caused her to close them again, groan softly, a hand coming up to rest against it, trying anything to ease the agony. The feel of soft flesh against her arm caused her to jump and she opened her good eye, only to find Grissom crouching beside her, staring at her intently. 

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. Got something in my eye, that's all."

"Let me see." He pulled on her arm but she resisted. 

"I'm fine, Grissom. Really. It'll go away."

"Sara, it could also scratch your cornea and cause permanent damage. Now, let me see." 

Sara tried to move her body away from Grissom, but he tightened his grip on her arm and gave her that _'don't argue with me' _look. 

"Grissom, I'm fine," she ground out.

"Sara, just let me look, okay?" His sudden change of voice, from that of authoritarian to almost pleading was the clincher that made her lower her arm and present herself for his observation. 

She turned herself around in the chair to face him as he pulled one over to sit before her. As he leaned over toward her, she leaned toward him and raised her face and eyes to the ceiling. When his hands landed on her face, the warmth travelled through her body like an roaring train. He brought his face close to hers and began the gentle pulling of her lower lid. He was so close to her, she could feel his breath on her face, warm and caressing. 

"Mint," he mumbled. 

"What?"

"You smell like mint," he said, as he worked. 

Sara could only mumble a response. She moved her eye this way and that as per his request, and his hands kept readjusting on her face, the softness of his fingers sending jolt after jolt down her body, enough to cause palpitations in her heart. She tried to control her breathing but it was proving rather difficult and it was then that she noticed Grissom's breathing had changed as well. 

His head came closer to hers as he angled himself upward a bit to see more of her eye. She couldn't help it, she looked at him. 

And he looked at her. 

No longer her eyeball, but her. 

With his hands on her face, and his face so close to hers, they stared at each other, neither moving, neither knowing what exactly to do. Sara could feel his rapid breathing against her skin, as though he'd just come from running a marathon. Her own breathing wasn't far behind his. Her hands itched to touch him, like he was touching her, but this had started as an innocent medical examination. 

"Nothing there," she said. 

Grissom blinked. "What?"

"There's nothing there, Grissom."

"There isn't?"

"I told you there was nothing there. It's just itchy."

"What is?"

"My eye."

"Oh. Your eye." He dropped his hands and sat back, suddenly finding it difficult to meet her eyes. 

Something suddenly snapped in Sara and she fought a grin. "What were _you _talking about?" 

Grissom stared at her, much like a deer caught in a car's headlights. He didn't speak for a long time. "Uh... hmm... your eye. I thought I'd seen something but... maybe I was wrong." 

Sara did smile then. "I told you, nothing there. It's just a phantom pain, an itch really. It'll go away."

"What if it doesn't?"

"Then I'll probably have to get it checked out by a doctor." 

"I'm a doctor," Grissom heard himself saying.

"An _eye _doctor, Griss. Not a bug doctor." 

Grissom's lip turned up at the side at her attempt at a joke. "You sure there's nothing there?"

"I can't feel anything. Like I said, just an itch." But then a tear fell down her cheek and she brushed it away with a swift move of her hand. "See, the tears will make it go away. That's what my mother always said, 'just cry and the tears will make it all go away'." 

"Have you tried that?"

Sara swallowed. "Yeah. It helps some, but not enough. It's still there."

"Maybe there's something there and it's just invisible. You can't see it but your body can feel it." 

Sara stared at Grissom. This conversation had taken on overtones of something she wasn't sure of. "Maybe," she conceded. 

"I'd like to help, but I don't know what to do. I can see that your eye is red and enflamed. And it's crying. We do have an eye wash in the first aid kit. Want me to go and get it?"

Grissom's sudden swap in characters was disarming. First he'd simply wanted to see into her eye, now he was wanting to continue helping her. 

"Thanks Grissom, but I think I can find it on my own."

"It's hard to use, just one person. You'll need help."

Sara was silent for a moment. 

"Sara, come on. You need help, I'm here. Let's just do it, okay?" He stood up and held a hand out to her. 

Sara stared at his hand, his long fingers curved slightly as he waited for her to go with him. She looked up into his eyes and saw expectation and something else, something that spoke directly to her heart. Here was Grissom, extending a hand out to her in supplication for her to accept his help in the matter of her eye. 

"Yeah, let's just do it," she said and smirked as she slid her hand into his. She almost gasped when he wrapped his fingers around hers. Their hands hadn't touched in such a deliberate gesture since their first few meetings years ago when she was his student. And now he held onto her hand tightly as he pulled her up to stand before him. He didn't let go when she was standing and Sara had the dubious experience of suddenly finding herself quite close to Grissom, seeing his eyes closer than she could remember, smelling his scent more strongly than she could remember, her hand still trapped in his. 

He was staring at her, his face devoid of expression but Sara had learned a long time ago to read deeper than what Grissom usually presented. She could see how his breathing hadn't quite slowed down and the pulse in his neck was jumping a bit too fast. He said and did nothing, but it was there all the same. And he still was doing nothing about it. 

After a moment that seemed like an eternity of paralysis, he stepped back and let go of her hand. "Shall we go?" he said and extended an arm toward the doorway. 

She went to him and past him, keeping her eyes on his as he watched her. He placed a hand on her lower back and together they walked to the locker room for the first aid kit. 

~*~

"Tilt your head back, Sara," he said as he held the plastic eye washer. 

Sara sat on a chair beside the sink, a towel draped around her neck and another on her lap to catch any water. Grissom stood beside her, waiting. 

She did as she was told and found herself looking straight up at Grissom as he bent down toward her. 

"Don't panic, just let the water do its work. It'll feel weird, but it won't hurt."

"Grissom, I've had things in my eye before and used this thing. I know what's it's going to be like." 

"Okay." With eye washer in one hand and a cup of warm water in the other, he placed the rubber seal over her eye and started to pour in the water. "Open your eye, Sara."

The water did indeed feel very weird when it touched her eyeball and Sara had to blink to get used to it. "Why are you doing this?" she asked all of a sudden, trying in vain to see through the distortion of the water. 

Grissom looked from his work to her. "What do you mean? You needed help. Why wouldn't I help?"

"I don't know, it just seems so..."

"So what?"

"So nice all of a sudden. I'd've expected you to just say something like 'deal with it' and walk off." 

Grissom looked away. "I know."

She could feel the water working its way around her eye and she blinked to keep it moving, hoping it would pick up whatever it was that was there. 

"So...?"

"So, what?"

"Why the sudden change?"

"Why not? People can change, can't they?"

"Sure. But they usually have a reason to change. Something to make them want to change. They just don't wake up and decide they'll start being nice all of a sudden. So what made you suddenly be nice?"

He bit his lip, she could see the pulling and gnawing he was doing to it. "Because..." but he didn't finish. 

Sara didn't push the subject. Her urge to know had taken a turn and she decided she really didn't want to know the why anymore. 

"Okay, get up," Grissom said. "We need to rinse it out."

Together they managed to get Sara to a standing position and then bent over the sink to release the water. Grissom handed her some paper towels and she dabbed at her face. When she looked at him again and blinked the pain seemed to have lessened. She stared at herself in the mirror, pulling the skin as Grissom had done to see even more. Still nothing. 

"Better?" he asked.

"Yeah, a bit. I hope it goes away now. And it doesn't come back. Having water poured on your eyeball isn't exactly fun, you know."

"I know. I'm glad I was able to help." 

Sara stared at him and then smiled. "Thank you, for your help, Grissom." 

~*~

"Remember that case with the doctor and the nurse?" Grissom said as they were walking toward the breakroom again. 

"Lurie? The one who killed his nurse because she was sleeping with another man?"

Sara thought she saw Grissom's steps falter. "Yeah, that one."

"I remember it. Why?" A tightness descended upon her chest. 

__

If you keep saying 'no' to embracing the moment...

"Did you happen to notice how the nurse looked-"

"Like me?"

__

All you think about is her. You want to be with her. Eat with her. Laugh with her. Make love to her...

"Yeah," They turned the corner into the breakroom and headed for the couch. Sara sat down. "Yeah. I noticed. Brown hair and brown eyes are pretty common. Not surprising really." 

"Yes, I know. But..."

"But what?"

"Well, sometimes cases can really make you open your eyes and see the world in a different light."

__

An entire lifetime that comes down to this single frame of life...

"Yeah, I know," Sara said. 

"He killed her because he couldn't have her." 

"He was sick, Grissom. A sick form of control."

"I know. It drove him insane that she would do that." 

"He didn't have any say in her life. He couldn't control what she did. But he tried anyway, and now she's gone. For good." 

"And he's alone."

"Good for him. He deserves it. He had no right to do what he did."

"Love can make people do strange things."

"Love..." Sara scoffed, "is a double edged sword. It can either make you really happy... or really sad." 

"I know..."

"It wasn't love he had for her though, it was obsession. He was obsessed with her and therefore tried to control her. There was no love in that equation, at all." 

"So you're saying that because he tried to interfere in her life, because he didn't allow her to choose, that he didn't love her?"

"That's right."

"It would have been better had he simply stayed back and let her live?"

__

But not as scary as the day she looks at you for the first time--and sees a middle-aged man, who never experienced life...

Sara suddenly turned to Grissom, staring at him, her face a contorted expression of confusion and revulsion. "What are you getting at Grissom? You're not identifying with _Lurie, _are you? Seeing his actions in a more compassionate light?!" 

Grissom met her gaze. "No. I'm just trying to understand, that's all."

Sara smirked. "Since when have you been interested in humans, Grissom. I thought you'd given up on them a long time ago?"

"Not completely. Humans can be very interesting creatures. I guess I'm just trying to understand them a bit more."

"Why? You seem to be doing just fine when you were concentrating on your bugs. They tell better stories than people do."

"Not always. Bugs only tell part of the story. But people... their actions... they're so complex. It's mind boggling."

"And I reiterate, why are you suddenly so interested in people, Grissom?"

"Because I want to understand, Sara. I want to know."

"Know what?"

"What do to."

Sara's heart skipped a beat. "About what?"

Grissom stared at her for a long moment. "About something that's been bothering me for a while now." He looked down and played with his hands, before reaching up and taking his glasses off. When he looked at her again, she had the distinct impression that a thin wall had just been removed. By him. "Someone asked me a question a while back and I answered too quickly. I don't know why I did that. And when the issue was pushed I just... hid."

Sara tried to hear him around the rushing of blood in her ears. "You hid," she whispered. 

"I hid. I said something and... it was the first thing that came to me, so I said it."

Sara swallowed. "What did you say?"

"I said I didn't know what to do about this. And I didn't. I still don't, but I do want to know, Sara." 

Sara remembered how Grissom had looked in that interrogation room, staring down the other doctor as the words had flowed from his lips, indeed from his very heart it seemed. She had stood transfixed by the window, unable to move, unable to look away, unable to stop the flood of emotions that overtook her body. 

"It's not rocket science, Grissom. Sometimes you just have to stop thinking, and start feeling, start doing."

"But that's what has me so scared, Sara." The words came out choked, being forced out by the very need to say them. 

"You don't have to be afraid, Grissom."

Grissom took a deep shuddering breath. It was the only outward sign of his internal struggle. His body remained placid, his head down. But his hands were wrung tightly together. 

Sara watched him struggle, watched him clamp down, trying to push everything away. "What _do _you feel, Grissom?" 

He didn't move. Not a muscle. Except for the one in his jaw that had begun to jump a moment before. 

"Grissom?" Sara reached out a hand but when she touched his arm, he jerked and jumped to his feet, striding toward the table. He leaned on his hands, his head falling forward. She could hear his heavy breathing, like he was fighting something. 

She stayed where she was, not knowing whether to go to him or not. He seemed so hell bent on not going down that route, it seemed almost a waste of her time if he put up such a fight. That strength that had kept Sara going for so long drained from her body and she curled in on herself, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. Maybe all those little voices inside her head, those that said he wasn't worth it were true. 

She stood up and went to leave. As she passed by his bent form she raised a hand to rub his back, but stopped just before she touched him. His eyes were closed, he didn't see her. She held her hand by his back, feeling his body heat and then brought it back down. 

"I'm sorry, Grissom," she said and left the room. 

~*~

It was the end of shift, or it had been. Now it was way past the end of shift and the sun was shining brightly in the sky, a real mockery of the darkness that inhabited Sara's soul. She squinted behind her shades, just wanting the sun to go away and quit taunting her. 

There were no tears. There'd been enough, many a time when she'd gone home after yet another disaster of a shift with nary a word shared between her and Grissom. It was frustrating to say the least, but she'd gone down that route of feeling sorry for herself and wondering what was wrong with her that he wouldn't want her, that he would push her away so forcefully and with no warning, no preliminary argument to foresee the separation. She'd asked him one question, just a simple dinner invitation, one she'd offered to men before and never, not once, had she been so categorically shot down (so) as he'd done. 

So she had pulled away, as completely as she could considering her feelings kept getting their scab ripped off every evening when she walked into the breakroom and heard his voice and saw his eyes and smelled him. He was always around, in one way or another. Always there to remind her of what she couldn't have. Ever. 

Her mind brought her back to another evening, another conversation though this one overheard through a plate glass window. A monologue really, ostensibly about one person but just maybe about someone else entirely. And the words... the words kept coming at her. 

__

All you think about is her.   
You want to be with her.   
Eat with her.   
Laugh with her.  
Make love to her.

Her body shivered as her mind played the numerous scenarios associated with those words. It was torture, sheer torture to have heard those words and to absorb them but to never know them completely. Like the feelings he was describing, the words remained merely an abstraction of a real thing. He could never look at her and say those words. He could repeat them over and over looking into a mirror, saying them to someone else, as long as his heart wasn't on the line. 

His heart, the very matter of a person's being. That which made them human, made them creatures of feeling, of soul. That part of him he kept hidden so far deep down inside himself, it was only through empathizing with a killer that he could allow it to come up for air, only by saying the words to get the killer to admit to his own culpability. But never could those words be uttered if they weren't truly and solely meant from him and him alone. Never could another hear them as though they were his. There was no route for that release. 

With these thoughts in her mind, Sara started her car and pulled out. Another relatively uneventful shift had ended and once again she left with her heart bleeding and her soul sore. 

Grissom stood leaning against the table, his eyes closed against the pang of remorse that had gripped him when the conversation had started heading toward a place he'd managed to avoid for a long time. When Sara had asked him what he was feeling, it conjured up the panic that now gripped his body and held him in stasis, unable to move neither forward nor backward. 

And then his body let go and he fell with a dull thump into a chair, his mind only then beginning to clear. He looked around himself and realized he was alone. Alone in the breakroom and Sara was gone. She'd left and he hadn't even been aware of it. Yet another twinge in his temple to signify his abhorrent lack of social graces that had allowed her to leave without him realizing it, stuck as he were in his own turmoil. 

She was gone. She'd asked another question and this one he hadn't answered. He'd only gotten up and left, forsaken as it were by his own inability to face what he was feeling so strongly. It was enough to undo the most stoic of men. 

__

what are you feeling?

Just a simple question really. What was he feeling? But there was no answer. No _pat _answer. No _simple _answer. None that could have been uttered in the semi-privacy of the breakroom, or in the time that the deities had allowed for them to be alone. 

With a groan both from his mouth and his body, he rose from the chair and toddled toward his office, that one place in this building where he was guaranteed at least a modicum of privacy, at least until someone knocked on his door. And there he sat, staring at the growing piles of paperwork that begged his attention before they completely covered his desk and blotted everything. It was all moot anyway. 

~*~

The reflection in the mirror was uncompromising. It showed everything that there was to see and in vivid detail under the bright fluorescent lights of her bathroom. Sara stared at herself, wondering when she had gotten so old. Her hair hung limp and straight to her shoulders, no more bounce in it. There was a pallor to her skin reminiscent of one of Doc Robbins' patients. Her eyes, those windows to the soul, told the story of the slow and torturous decay of her soul, how with each shift a little more of it withered and fell away. Her naked body, rosy fresh from a scalding shower, stood as a declaration from some dieter's handbook: what _not _to be become. 

It was time once again to go to work. She only hoped for interesting cases to keep her mind occupied and away from the more desolate thoughts that haunted her consciousness. It was odd to hope for interesting cases, to hope that someone would choose an unusual way to commit a crime. But it was all that really made this job interesting. Each puzzle had its own merits, but in time each case became simply a repetition of previous ones, the same kind of evidence, the same reconstruction techniques. Anything but a decomp, she told the gods. Her stash of lemons wasn't adequate to rid her body of the foul stench of organic decay. 

~*~

He was there, of course. It was his station to be in his office as she walked by it. From the corner of her eye she saw him at his desk, head bent forward as he studied something. Her velocity didn't allow her to see more than a glimpse, but it was enough to unhinge her a bit more as she made her way to the breakroom. 

"Hey, you're late," Nick said from his lounging position on the couch, control pad nestled firmly in his hand as he glanced up for a second. 

"Shift hasn't started yet. I'm fine."

"Yeah but you're always here so early, so really, you're late," Warrick added from his place in the chair. He didn't take his eyes off the screen. 

"Well, good to see you guys!" Her obviously fake joy didn't faze them one bit; they continued with their game. 

Sara felt Catherine's eyes on her as she headed for the counter and the coffee machine. It wasn't unusual for Catherine to say nothing. Lately it seemed more and more people were offering Sara the silent treatment, speaking only when there was a need. Nick and Warrick were still speaking to her, as was Greg. But Greg, she knew, would probably always talk to her. 

She took a seat at the table, on the other side of Catherine and as far away from Grissom's usual post as possible. Whereas before she usually sat right by his side, in time she had moved seats until she was at the other end of the table, a good six feet away. It wasn't enough though. His pull on her was just as strong and from that particular spot, although she couldn't feel him, now she could see him more clearly. A perspective of distance; but one that didn't offer any more clues. 

"Work time, guys," Grissom said as he rounded the corner and came to stand by the table. 

Sara had a moment to wonder why he never seemed to sit with them anymore. He'd just zoom in, stand there and hand out assignments or tell them to work on their cases, stuff they already knew. It was all formalities. 

With his normal perfunctory social graces, he performed his supervisor duties and disappeared again from the room. Sara was, of course, paired with anyone other than Grissom. In fact this time she was alone. Solo case. At least it wasn't a decomp. There were still graces in this world, she thought as she left to her crime scene. 

~*~

"What's new?"

Sara lifted her head from the microscope and peered at Grissom standing in the doorway. 

__

Without doors. No boundaries. No restrictions. 

Well, there went that idea right out the window. There he stood in the doorway, his arms across his chest - the boundary. His stance as supervisor - the restriction. He simply exuded his own confines. 

Taking a deep breath, Sara related what she'd gathered from her crime scene, in as detailed a synopsis as she could give him, anything to make his visit short. He was only there because he had to be and she was going to make sure he wasn't there any longer than he needed to be. 

"Great," he said and jotted some notes on his clipboard before dropping it to hang by his side and came into the room to stand beside Sara. 

She stood her ground but inside she was quaking with fear at his sudden departure from his normal routine of short visits. "Anything else you need?"

He stared at her a moment and then down at the microscope. "Can I see?"

Sara blinked, and then shrugged her shoulders and stepped aside, motioning with her head that it was all his. With a nod and a glance that was longer than usual, he removed his glasses and bent his head to the microscope. 

With his attention otherwise occupied, Sara was free to allow herself the opportunity to gaze down at him, to notice the flecks of grey in his hair and the crow's feet around his eyes, especially when he squinted. His skin was smooth but with the characteristic seasoned roughness that came with age, regardless of time spent outdoors. His lips pursed as he concentrated on the fragment of cloth Sara'd picked up. 

"What do you make of it?" he asked as he straightened. His glasses remained in his hand. 

"It's burgundy red. And not cotton. Some kind of polyester blend..." she went on to enumerate its various attributes as she attempted to narrow it down to its singular compound. 

All the while Grissom watched her, his eyes never leaving her face. She met his gaze head on and was amazed that she could still speak in complete and coherent sentences. As she spoke Grissom was moving incrementally closer to her, first one foot forward as he shifted his weight, and then the next as he shifted to the other hip and before she knew it, he was closer to her than she realized and his breath was fanning her face. She stopped talking and stared at him with open frankness as to his sudden nearness. 

Grissom, for his part merely continued to stare at her, as though mesmerized by her eyes. 

"What are you doing?" she asked him. 

"Nothing."

"Then why are you standing so close to me?"

"Why not?"

The ire that rose in Sara at Grissom's complete audacity fed to her eyes in a luminous black spark. 

Grissom started visibly and backed up a step, blinking in confusion. 

Sara shook her head from side to side. "You can't do that, Grissom. You can't just pretend that certain things didn't happen."

"I'm not."

"Really?"

"I'm trying, Sara," he said earnestly, staring into her eyes. 

"What are you trying?"

"I'm trying... to do something... about this."

"By coming into my personal space. I thought we were done with that?"

Grissom paused. "Done...?"

"Playing games. Coming into each other's personal space." Sara crossed her arms. "You can't tell me, can you?"

"Tell you what?"

"What it is you're feeling."

The sigh that came from Grissom's mouth was a sound of weariness and frustration. It didn't escape Sara's notice. "You're asking about my feelings."

"Yes."

Grissom grinned, a rather sardonic one. "Sara. You should know that men don't like to talk about their feelings."

Her nostrils flared at the huff of air. "Right. Fine then mister silence, he who doesn't talk about his feelings. So tell me then, what does_ 'abstraction becomes reality_', and '_go into infinity with he_r' and_ 'love was a new experience... so was rejection_' mean?" 

Grissom's skin paled beneath his tan as his mouth fell open. "Where did you hear that?"

"Where do you think?"

"You were there?"

"Yes. You knew I was." 

Grissom's gaze dulled as he remembered that shift. He'd asked her if she wanted to observe. "I'd forgotten." He looked at her again. "How... how much did you... did you hear?"

"Enough."

"How much?" he asked more strongly. 

"I heard enough to make me wonder just how come you could identify with Lurie like you did. How you knew how it felt to be in love with someone who worked for you, someone younger, someone who could have anybody and who it seemed _was _having everyone. '_I'm talking about every man who's been there.' _Were you there Grissom? Had you _ever _been?" 

"Oh god..." Grissom's hand covered his face as he sank down onto the stool. 

"You can say those words to a complete stranger - to a _murderer -_ but you can't say them to me." 

"Sara..."

"Grissom. I can't wait around forever. I have a life to live. I'd like for that life to be with you, but if you don't want that, I'll stop beating my head against the brick wall and walk away. I'm not one to stalk people, Grissom. I'll leave you alone. If that's what you want."

Grissom stared at Sara. Her words had sliced through his thin veneer of protection and cut him to the core. She was giving him an ultimatum. Tell her yes and she stays, tell her no and it's over. No more turning back. No more waiting, for either of them. Sara would no longer have to wait for him to figure out things, and he'd no longer have to wait for himself to figure things out. 

It was now or never.

__

just tell her

"Why can't you do it?" Sara asked. At his panicked expression, she continued. "Why can't you just say it?" 

"Sara, not here," he whispered hoarsely. 

"Then where?"

He stared at her a moment before grabbing her hand and practically dragging her out the door. Down the hall he pulled her along, her feet barely walking as she more or less stumbled along behind him, her shoulder protesting the sudden lurch. 

He turned the corner to his office and swung her in, closing the door with a slam behind him. Then he turned on her, his face red, his nostrils flaring and his eyes shiny. His chest rose and fell with each huff. 

"Why do you _do _that?" he demanded. 

With eyes wide in shock, "Do what?" she asked. 

"Why do you talk about things in public like that? Sara, you can't do that to me!"

Sara took in his anger and frustration and borderline embarrassment. She understood it, completely. But it didn't stop her. Her own sense of frustration urged her on to more dangerous ground. "Then why do you insist and invading my personal space, _in public_?" 

"I do not--"

Sara walked right up to him, their chests almost touching, her face in his. "Like this."

She saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard, her sudden proximity affecting him as much as she'd hoped. He stared into her eyes, unable to look away. "You were so willing to pin me down on that sheet. And then you wouldn't move. I had to push you away. So explain _that_ me mister, in a public place at that!" 

It could be said that his anger of before was still there and growing. Or it could have been something else. Whatever it was, it was making him search her face madly, his eyes going everywhere at once and his chest huffing in and out. She could feel it, yearning to break to the surface, to be set free. If only... one more push. "Did you like holding my wrists like that?" she goaded him, "Did it make you feel like finally you could control me? Keep me yours, keep me here, keep me from seeing anyone else?" 

Her words hit him with their rawness. It was uncanny how close to home she hit with them. Adrenaline coursed through his veins like an acid drip, burning holes in his defences, painfully raw holes that allowed his pent up feelings to come seeping out. Her closeness, the sweet scent of her shampoo, or whatever it was, was intoxicating him, making him forget. With a growl deep in his throat, a sound he barely heard, he grabbed her face and crushed his lips to hers, his tongue gaining access when her mouth opened to protest. 

He kissed like a hungry man, devouring her lips and sucking on her tongue, a starved man partaking like a madman. His arms wrapped around her and held her to him tightly in an embrace reminiscent of desperation for survival. 

Sara's shock dissipated quickly enough under his assault and she joined in soon enough, her own arms wrapping around his neck and her fingers roaming through his hair, keeping his face to hers as she plundered his mouth with her own tongue. She could feel his heavy breathing on her face as his chest heaved against hers. Their thighs were pressed closely together and Sara almost lost her balance. She lifted a leg and wrapped it around his, anything to get closer to him, to feel him against her. 

He moved her backward, his arms around her almost picking her up against him until the edge of his desk hit the back of her legs. With this solid mass behind her, Grissom pushed himself into her harder, moaning her name against her lips as his hands began exploring her body, coming around the front to take hold of a breast and squeeze it tightly. 

Her sudden gasp shocked him but when her head fell back and she moaned his name, his given name, "Gil..." he knew. He captured the tender flesh of her neck and tasted her suddenly damp skin. 

When her legs wrapped around his hips and he felt her hot center against his raging arousal, his mind snapped. Just knowing that she was there, with him and against him, wanting him as much as he wanted her, it was too much. He took her lips again, bruising them with the immense power of his need for her. 

Sara's hands were roaming on his back, enjoying the feel of his muscles bunching and tensing in his movements and she longed to feel more. She tugged on his shirt and then slid her hands inside along his skin. His body shuddered and she heard him grunt in response only to pull away suddenly. 

He stared at her with half-lidded eyes, his mouth open, his lips swollen and red. Sara figured she must look something similar. 

"Do you see why now?" he said in a hoarse voice. "I can't control myself around you. I knew this would happen. I knew that if it started I wouldn't be able to stop myself." 

"Grissom... it's okay."

"No. It's not okay, Sara." He released her from his body and stepped back, beginning to tuck in his shirt. He swore when he realized he'd have to undo his pants. Giving her an angry glare, he walked to a corner and gave her his back while he adjusted his clothes. 

Sara watched his jerky movements and began to wonder if this was the end, if the tattered remains of their friendship had just been blown away, never to be retrieved again. The future lay blank before her; she didn't even know if she'd be in this building the next day, if this was it. 

When Grissom was done, he leaned against a shelf, a hand holding him up. She could hear him breathing, the forced long inhales of someone trying to regain control. He didn't move for a long moment and Sara considered just slipping out and simply going home. This was certainly not what she thought would happen if they'd ever kissed. In her dreams it had been fantastical, he would declare his undying love and everything would be fine. This was as far from that fantasy as it could get. First the undeniable passion and now this unforgettable despair. 

She fixed her hair as much as she could without a mirror and smoothed down her clothes. Taking a deep breath and giving him one last look, she turned to leave. 

His voice stopped her. 

"Sara..." It came out so low, she'd almost missed it. 

When she turned around, he was looking at her. Although his clothes were in the right place and just a little more wrinkled then they ought to be, it was his face that seemed to have suddenly aged a decade. It was a haggard face that met her. Dull blue eyes and hanging skin. He looked like a man defeated. 

Sara didn't move, didn't go to him, merely waited for him to speak. She didn't trust her voice, didn't trust herself not to say something stupid. 

"I'm sorry," he said. 

Sara swallowed. "For what?"

"For everything. Sara, you know I want you. You heard it in the interrogation room. You... felt it here."

"Yes..."

"But--"

"Grissom," Sara took a step forward, she couldn't help it. "You're not some... _two week subscription. _Crushes don't last this long. They fade away and die. They don't grow stronger over time. They don't possess a person and keep them awake at night. You have no idea what I feel for you, because you never asked." She took another step forward. "Don't assume things, Grissom. Don't form theories and then think of them as facts. You don't know."

He watched her advance toward him. "Tell me?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

Sara hesitated a moment, taking another step. "I'm... in love with you." 

At the same time he seemed to grow and yet shrink before her eyes. Grow in happiness and shrink in realization of how much he'd put her through, trying to push her away, trying to end this crush he thought she had on him. It was something so much bigger than a crush. "Oh..." it was all he could say. 

The smile that pulled on Sara's lips was not a happy one and she sighed long. She was tired. It'd been a long and tiring shift and to have it end on such a disheartening note was not one she wanted to dwell on. 

"Sara-"

"What? Don't say it, okay. Just don't. I don't need to hear it. I don't want to hear it." She swallowed around the lump that had appeared in her throat. "Wanting and... loving, are two different things. I know that. It... would never work, between us." 

"Sara-"

"Grissom, please..."

"Listen to me," he said, now his turn to go to her. He took her arms in his hands and stared into her eyes. "I didn't know you loved me. I thought... you're right, I thought it was just some flimflam thing and I didn't want to get hurt. I love you and I didn't want to get hurt so I didn't do anything. When I said no, I wasn't thinking. I thought you were just trying to avoid what we were talking about. And then you said you wanted to see what would happen and I thought I knew what would happen and I didn't know how to stop it. I really didn't know how to stop...what I thought you felt for me. I'm sorry." 

Sara could only stare at him, her eyes wide and fixed on his. His entire monologue had come out on one breath, as though to stop and breathe might have broken the spell and the walls would have come back up. Whatever his reasons, Sara didn't care. She'd heard the words she'd so longed to hear. "You love me?"

"Yes, Sara. I do love you. For a long time." 

"Oh god... I can't believe this." She stared into his eyes and saw for the first time what her heart had pined for. "What the hell have we been doing?"

Grissom's hands began to caress her arms. "I don't know. Scared I guess. We were both scared."

"I never thought... that you could love me. I thought... I'd have to make you love me, show you that I was someone you could love. But you never gave me the chance."

"You didn't have to, Sara. It was there all the time." Grissom shrugged his shoulders; there was nothing more he could say. 

~*~ _...the end..._

Copyright © 2003 Anansay 


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